This week, environmentally-minded folks at Kalamazoo College had two things to celebrate: Earth Week, and the 2024 Sustainability SIP Symposium!

Hosted by the Environmental Stewardship Center and the Environmental Studies Department, the Symposium is a gathering of seniors who completed their Senior Integrated Project (SIP) in Environmental Studies; their projects came from disciplines all across campus, from biology, to German, to art!

Students, families, and friends came together in the Banquet Hall to hear the seniors present on their topics, answer questions, and explore the work of their peers. This year’s SIPs covered a diverse range of topics, including grazing sheep in the Arboretum, tackling the ins and outs of ecotourism in Costa Rica, and painting human-nature relations inspired by the Nature Center’s DeLano Farms.

The SIP Symposium is an important event because it invites all of our campus community to understand a key concept: that sustainability at Kalamazoo College is a collective effort! It doesn’t only come from the Environmental Stewardship Center, or the natural sciences; sustainability takes all of us, from all communities and areas of study.

A special thank you to our seniors, who created and shared such wonderful projects with us: Aide Hazel Gaitan, Guenevere Baierle, Camran Stack, Olivia DePauli, Quinn Collins, Celia A. Kuch, Aerin Braunohler, Gabriel Coleman.

We can’t wait to see you all at next year’s Symposium!

On April 20th and 21st, 2022, Kalamazoo College hosted the 2022 Sustainability SIP Symposium on Zoom. The event was sponsored by the Center for Environmental Stewardship, Environmental Studies and the Experiential Pathways Program.

Keynote speaker Dr. David Michener, curator at University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, shared what he had learned from over two decades of working to decolonize the University’s approach to land stewardship and to develop sustained relationships with Indigenous partners that support their work in reclaiming land, seed and food sovereignty.

The following night, Kalamazoo College seniors presented their Senior Integrated Projects (SIPs) related to the environment or sustainability. The SIPs came from various academic departments: Environmental Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, Biology and Physics.

Check out the SIP posters on GatherTown here, and learn about these talented and driven students below.

• Kayla Carlson (Economics Major, Anthropology/Sociology Minor Environmental Studies Concentration): Local Limits in A Sustainable Future: A Case Study on the City of Kalamazoo, Western Michigan University, and Kalamazoo College Climate Action Plans

• Megan VanDyke (Environmental Studies Major): Reorienting our Pedagogical Compass: Visioning a Decolonial Outdoor Education

• Anna Fetter (Biology Major): Trail based vegetation surveys of invasive plant species on Riparian Wetland adjacent to the Paw Paw River, Southwest Michigan

• Ella Knight (Biology & History Major, Classical Civilization Minor): The English West Indies: Environmental Transformation and Insect Ecology in the Early Modern Caribbean

• Samuel Meyer (Physics Major, Math Minor): Sustainable Irrigation in the Developing World

• Ruby Seiwerath (Critical Ethnic Studies Major): Work as Celebration: A Seating Area for Gathering in the Grove

• Rina Talaba (Anthropology/Sociology & Biology Major, Environmental Studies Concentration): The spatial variation of leaf traits in Ipomopsis aggregata

On April 21st and 22nd, Kalamazoo College hosted the 2021 Sustainability SIP Symposium on Zoom. This event was sponsored by the Center for Environmental Stewardship, Environmental Studies and the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

Keynote speaker Jonathan C. Hall, Assistant Professor of Geography at West Virginia University, shared his experience researching a deeper understanding of the relationships between human communities and non-human wildlife species with the ultimate goal of contributing a diversity of solutions to problems of the Anthropocene that are grounded in a praxis of coexistence and codependence with non-human relatives. Listen to his address here.

The next night, Kalamazoo College seniors presented their Senior Integrated Projects (SIPs) related to the environment or sustainability. The SIPs came from various academic departments: Psychology, Biology, Critical Ethnic Studies, English, Political Science, Chemistry and Computer Science.

Check out the SIP presentations and posters on GatherTown here, and learn about these talented and driven students below.

• Alejandro Aguirre (Biology Major & History Minor): Tree Survey of Former Coal-Ash Dump Site along the Kalamazoo River and Identification of Potential Bioindicator Species

• Nicki Bailey (Biology Major & Environmental Studies Concentration): Variation in Bumble Bee Foraging Preferences by Flower Characteristics in Southwest Michigan

• Owen Bersot (Biology Major with Anthropology & Sociology Minor): Implementation of Psycholytic Therapy (Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy) for Treatment of Climate Activist Burnout

• Alexa Duma (Biology Major & Environmental Studies Concentration): An analysis of bee diversity and sampling techniques in southwestern Michigan

• Riley Gabriel (English Major & History Minor): My Composting Body (poetry compilation)

• Sophia Goebel (Critical Ethnic Studies & Political Science Major): On the Importance of Indigenous Language Revitalization in Sustaining Sacred Relationship with Nature in Oaxaca, Mexico

• Kelly Nickleson (Biology Major with Concentrations in ENVS & CGHL): Susceptibility of Highbush Blueberry Cultivars to Infestation by Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura, 1931) (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

• Niko Nickson (Biology Major with Concentrations in ENVS & CGHL): The efficacy of the Southwest Michigan Bee Watch citizen science program and the assessment of landscape in determining bumble bee diversity

• Ian Nostrant (Computer Science Major): Applications of Internet of Things Devices in Greenhouse Management and Agriculture: Increasing Productivity and Control in Enclosed Growing Environments

• Kelson Perez (Biology Major): Vegetation Survey of a Brownfield Site Inhabited by Unhoused People in East Kalamazoo

• Hannah Pittman (Political Science Major & Environmental Studies Concentration): The Crude Truth: How U.S. fossil fuel corporations rewrote the narrative on Climate Change

• Hannah Shiner (Biology Major, ANSO Minor, with Concentrations in ENVS & CGHL): Kalamazoo College Proposed Tree Enhancement Project

• Kali Stanger (Chemistry Major & Environmental Studies Concentration): Propagation of native freshwater mussels for the continuation of provided ecosystem services

• Cassandra Vogel (Biology Major): An Identification Booklet and Plant Survey of Species around Batts Pond of Lillian Anderson Arboretum